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What Members Thought
I'm not a huge romance novel fan (with the exception of Jane Austen), but I really enjoyed this book. Sort of a historical-fiction-romance book. It's very clever and well-written.
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Amazing, stunning. This is a book I keep going back to over and over again. The way Byatt explored so many different storylines and themes was masterful.
I've never loved Victorian poetry more.
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To me, there's always been something a little bit odd about people who spend their entire lives researching the lives of others. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but it strikes me odd that someone would devote their life to learning the in's and out's of how someone else lived their life...all the while not really building up a life of their own. This put me at odds with the protoganists of "Possession," two perfectly fine but bland academics who minutely research the lives and writings of two V
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Two thoughts:
1) This book was IMPOSSIBLE for me to actually read - the only way I ended up getting through it was for me to listen to it.
2) That said, this STORY is great! The story is about two poets in the mid-late 19th century. Thus, a lot of the book is poetry, and another 1/3 is literary criticisms of the poets by their modern day researchers, the other 1/3 is the story fo the researchers finding out about the story between the two poets. For me, the poetry and literary criticism parts were ...more
1) This book was IMPOSSIBLE for me to actually read - the only way I ended up getting through it was for me to listen to it.
2) That said, this STORY is great! The story is about two poets in the mid-late 19th century. Thus, a lot of the book is poetry, and another 1/3 is literary criticisms of the poets by their modern day researchers, the other 1/3 is the story fo the researchers finding out about the story between the two poets. For me, the poetry and literary criticism parts were ...more
Woof. I normally give books one hundred pages before I throw in the towel, but it only took 30 for me to realize that a) I would hate it and b) if I kept going I'd feel obligated to finish and then just feel resentful about wasting my precious reading time on something so tedious. ...more
Yes! Yes! Yes! I've been waiting for a book like this! Mysterty, Romance, Poetry, Possession has it all!!! As soon as I finished I wanted to start all over again...there are so many literary clues sprinkled throughout that I'm sure I missed more than I caught. It made me dig out my dusty old copies of Tennyson and Coleridge and re-read their poems looking for more clues to understand this lovely lovely book.
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I'm going to need a while.
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Apr 26, 2007
Alison
marked it as to-read
Apr 15, 2016
Leah Fitzgerald
marked it as to-read
Apr 26, 2017
Laura
marked it as to-read
Jan 23, 2019
superawesomekt
marked it as tbr-myshelf
Sep 09, 2020
Kim
marked it as dnf
Jun 12, 2023
Kai
marked it as to-read
Sep 12, 2025
Kate (kate_reads_)
is currently reading it
